天下制覇

Subtle, it ain't.

Impressions:

Leaving aside all the foreshadowing delivered regarding ol' Iinchou and Kururu with the delicacy of a Mack truck, this was another segment where the production values were very, very badly lacking, especially around Lillian going crazy and her death. Show, don't tell, guys. How little effort it would've taken for some blood splatter and maybe crazy eyes or something. Her caressing a rotted-out piglet would have been appropriately disturbing, same if they were trying to be jarring with her execution. Same goes for Karen's death too. Textual descriptions about how wounded and deathly pale she looks and then… exact same stand image as usual before a quick CG of her exploding into petals.

It's a little odd too, because those thoughts obviously went into the presentation of the battle scene. Both Lillian and Iinchou reflected plot events for once with both having completely different voice samples for it (as well as boosted stats, dramatically so in Iinchou's case). Clearly then, this was a thought that went into that series of events, but it didn't actually extend to where it really needed to be and could've made a difference and sold those scenes. Really makes me wonder just how separate the artists and writers are kept in the development of these things. Probably very.

Our Story Thus Far:

After Karen flies off, we take Wet Towel to some random room to rest, but she doesn't wake up for a long time. We think about what Karen said, especially about someone being killed. We wish we could go help her, but we want to stay with Wet Towel. A hero doesn't sacrifice other people. Blondie is worried because Karen and Towel didn't follow us through the gate. Apparently there are only two ways into magic land from human land, either the gate opened from our side or from the other. It takes a ton of magic to go human -> witch. We think Karen might be a witch, but Blondie assures us she's not, because the color of her eyes is wrong. Also, because real witches can use magic without props.

Back to dimensional travel, even witches need the "key of light" to open the gate, which is Blondie, since that's her bloodline's THING. She and her mother are the only two who can do it. So the question is who opened the gate for Karen, but we have no answer. Ringo interrupts us to let us know Wet Towel's awake, but something's weird with her. When we go see her, she's staring at the dark sky and doesn't react to us. Her eyes are hollow. Also, the hamster is missing. She's sluggish to react to anybody when we try to talk to her. After a few token formality greetings, Blondie tries to apologize for how Witchland looks nothing like she described. Wet Towel snaps and yells at us to get out. Ringo tries to put her hand on her shoulder, but gets slapped away. Wet Towel asks us to leave her alone for a while.

We shuffle the girls out. Ringo's really shaken up by it and is freaked out by how calm Wet Towel is acting and how she suddenly lost her temper. We all think something must've happened on her and Karen's way here, but we're afraid to ask. Time keeps passing. Without a sun, it's hard to tell how long. We don't know what we can do either, so we're stuck sitting around. While we're thinking about things in the cathedral, Wet Towel walks in. She says she was taking a walk to try to clear her mind. She looks healthy, but there's still a shadow over her face (apparently).

She apologizes for earlier. We assure her that we and the other two are fine. She says it's all weird. We try to assure her everything's okay, but notice like Ringo, how unnaturally calm she is. She explains that she wanted to follow after us after we disappeared, and Karen brought her. Our previous theory was right. Karen knew someone in Witchland to open the gate for them. However, she says that Karen came from Witchland. We notice around here that Wet Towel has the same color eyes as Kururu, but dismiss it as just a coincidence. Uh huh. We wonder why Karen helped us and was in humanland, but no answers are forthcoming. Wet Towel is comforted by having us here though, and admits that she's scared about what might happen next. She doesn't say it, but she wants us to hug her tight and kiss her.

She closes her eyes and waits, but our heart already belongs to Blondie, so we change the subject and ask about who Karen knew in Witchland. She passed out before she found out, and quickly excuses herself. Gee, I can't imagine any situation this parallels that we've only just recently learned about. We go see Blondie out of misplaced guilt. She senses we're feeling down. We tell her Wet Towel's not mad anymore, but we're still depressed.

She admits that she knew we were suffering from Mavis's dark magic and Orr's attack. She says she's been pushing herself too, since her mother's missing. Everyone knew everyone else was acting tough. Yada yada feelings. She tells us to stop holding back, and if anything's wrong, she'll help. We hug, get a boner, pull her into bed, sloppily make out, and then apparently have lots of nasty sex. And in the truest spectacular Japanese bit of awkward writing, narrate how we didn't notice that the door was slightly open and SOMEONE saw us and it makes their chest hurt. The SOMEONE says to stop calling each other's names, feeling so good, and laments how they were by SOMEONE ELSE for so long, but were too cowardly to make SOMEONE look their way. Can't imagine what this is all about or where it's going. They beg for it to stop.

All of a sudden, the castle shakes and we hear people screaming. We run out to see what's going on. A magimon flies past us right before we run headlong into Ringo. There are magimon everywhere. Celia meets us there too. She has no idea what's going on either. We decide that it must be Lillian, and if we beat her, all the magimon will stop attacking. Wet Towel says that Lillian's outside, and if we don't kill her quickly, the witches living here will be in danger. She walks off without waiting for us. In the town, Lillian is enjoying terrifying people and says that the world will be reborn with the power of darkness.

Not so much the comical rants anymore, as she starts chanting at her magimon to kill. We tell her that's far enough. She thanks Kururu for saving her the other day, but that was also the genesis of new pleasure and greater power for her. We declare that we'll defeat her and regain peace. This makes her laugh. She says that this world never had peace. It was enslaved under Queen Cynthia and light. Now, their queen, Orr, will rule. Wet Towel is shocked by the name. Lillian snuggles with her familiar… except it's now dead and rotted, with its internal organs spilling out. Snuggling covers her face in its blood. This would probably be a lot more effective if it actually was showing any of it. We guess that the darkness is manipulating her, but she says she follows it willingly, so doesn't need to be controlled. She declares she'll set us free from the chains of light. We try to attack her, but magimon protect her and let her cast her gravity spell, even more powerful than before.

She's acting a bit more crazy now too, licking her fingernails with her tongue and slicing it open with them, but not noticing. Everyone's being crushed… except for Wet Towel, who's still standing there, just fine. She uses one of her swords to break Lillian's spell and free us. Wet Towel wonders out loud if Lillian even is able to kill her. Lillian says there's a 2/3rds chance she can. Towelie corrects her to a 100% chance Lillian will die.

Lillian gets ready to attack her, but Kururu stands in front of her and desperately tries to protect her. We stand in front of her with Masamune too. Wet Towel effortlessly casts a spell that blasts past us and nukes Lillian's. Lillian barely manages to deflect it into a building that ends up a crater. We're surprised at how good Wet Towel's gotten with magic. Wet Towel says she pities Lillian who understands nothing. Lillian says that with the sky covered by darkness, she can't lose.

Nothing really special here. Lillian shows off how dark magic can be a dick and pass instead of casting anything, but after that, she goes down hard. Wet Towel lost her support attack in this form, but does ridiculous damage and can cast any element like Kururu now instead of having her element chosen at random at the start of each turn. Also, note that unlike all the rest of the stuff in this scene, Lillian's voice clips have gone to crazyville, and Wet Towel's have gone to Terminator-mode.

Obviously, she loses. We hold her at swordpoint, but make it a special point to narrate that we're not going to kill her. She says that her magimon can't be stopped anymore. They're out of her control. She lost what she cared about and her mind has been attacked by darkness. She tells us that the darkness hates everything, and that she hates it. Hatred becomes power, and that's how she became a witch of darkness. All the other witches will be swallowed by it, just like she was. The entire world will be covered in darkness and destroyed. We yell at her that's not true. She freaks the hell out and begs us not to kill her, saying she doesn't want to die. She's afraid, and the darkness is evil. She continues ranting that she didn't do anything wrong, the darkness did, before collapsing in a heap, mumbling to herself.

Everyone feels pity for her… except Wet Towel. She demands to know why we haven't killed her. We tell her she's no threat anymore, but Towel insists that she tried to kill us. None of us want to kill her, so Wet Towel says she'll do it. Lillian begs and grovels for her life. Wet Towel says how pathetic she looks and questions if she's really a witch of darkness. Lillian says that she's not, but if you pretend to be, and pretend to be with Orr, you can become stronger. She insists that she's actually a witch of light and evil witches should be banished from the world. Wet Towel is not amused. She casts a spell full of phrases like "rise from the abyss." We yell at her to stop, but it's too late. We tackle Ringo and Blondie so they don't see as Wet Towel executes Lillian, painfully and bloodily.

When we open our eyes, Lillian's dead and her body full of swords. Wet Towel is covered in blood (supposedly), staring uncaringly at her. For just a moment, her hair flashes white. She tells us to look around. All the magimon have stopped. Kururu uncomfortably thanks Wet Towel for saving all the witches, but says that taking someone's life who was begging for help is heartless. Wet Towel retorts that a lot more would've died if she hadn't killed Lillian. Before they can keep arguing, Ringo points up at the sky where Karen's dragon is flying unsteadily towards the castle. Inside, witches are (apparently) running around everywhere, treating the injured. Some are missing arms and legs from the attack. We're forced to admit that Wet Towel's decision saved lives. Kururu wants to go help, but Celia tells her that she's the queen and she can't be doing such things. She has to be saving Witchland instead. We all agree with Celia. Wet Towel reminds us about the dragon we immediately forgot.

Over at the temple, the dragon's touched down. It's too exhausted to fight, and looks at us sadly. It silently begs us to save Karen. Karen says she wasn't able to save anybody. She's pale and really bad off. Karen is shocked that Wet Towel is still in Witchland. Wet Towel's pissed at her for all the lies and swears that she won't let things go as Karen's troupe wants. Karen admits that they made a terrible mistake. She thought that bringing Wet Towel could help somehow, but it was a huge mistake. Wet Towel is pissed off further about how much she suffered because of their mistake. Karen says that Wet Towel should've never been born. That way, she wouldn't have suffered. The peanut gallery takes exception, but Karen says they know nothing. She apologizes, but says that we need to do something quickly or the world really will be destroyed. She staggers towards us and says that Orr is in flame country, waiting for us. The only ones who can save Witchland are Kururu and us. Our sword can defeat her. She collapses as she tries to explain about our sword and says that she's about to die. Her body's falling apart because of Orr's power. She fades away, saying her mother is waiting for her, and disappears into marigold petals in our arms. Kururu swears that Orr will pay for this through her tears.

We tell her we're going after Orr, for revenge and to regain Witchland's light. According to Karen, we can defeat her thanks to Masamune. To protect yada yada, too many things listed. Ringo says we're not going by ourselves. Wet Towel is biting her lip, but we're not sure why exactly. We tell her Karen wanted her help to save Witchland. Towel says that's probably not true. If it was, she just would've told her that, but it is true that she wanted to save Witchland, so she's coming with us too. We all yell about love and justice conquering all, and swear that we'll win.